NHeventing Competition and Training Blog: Arena eventing, LMEQ, 30-01-16

Started with the 90cm course. No time to walk the course so just watched several go from various angles to get the hang of the turns for the timed XC section. Bogey fence seemed to be fence 5 in the SJ, a skinny on a tight turn off the wall around a XC fence.

Warmed up nicely, seeing good shots to my warmup fences which is always encouraging. I do wish he'd put a bit more enthusiasm into it given how insane he was on our hack the day before but that's Monty for you. He woke up nicely in the arena, popped round the SJ's nicely, held him a bit to the bogey fence but we cleared it then put my foot down for the XC section. Was really pleased with how he responded, how I rode the corners and he stayed balanced and went on the forwards stride. Turns out we won and it was a huge class. We were 0.2seconds slower than the optimum. Clever pony.

Hour's break then on to the 100. They didn't change the course, just put the height up so aim was to just ride it the same although wanted to not ride such a backwards stride to the bogey fence. It was up to height and the XC fences just had poles on top rather than being bigger and more solid which is always a problem with the dangly toed one!

Warmup didn't exactly start well. No-one around to put a small fence for me so aimed him at the 1m vertical that was up, rode it really backwards so he stopped and I fell off - what a load of rubbish. Luckily the lovely Chris Kirby who was stewarding came to my rescue, made me a x-pole and we built up from there and he was jumping well so in we went. He flew round, making it all feel really easy, got a great stride to the bogey fence and he tapped it out behind - grrrr! He is so careful when I bury him and just gets lazy when he's on a slightly longer stride. Also had one of the skinny poles over the logs down - boshed it hard enough with his fetlock to leave a brown stain for days so can't put that one down to just breathing on it! Disappointing but pleased with how confident he felt after the blip in the warmup. We were 5secs off the pace but I didn't really ride for it after the pole down in the SJ section. Need to give myself a kick and stop riding him like a bloody lemon in the warmups. Have got a couple of much needed lessons with Chris Burton coming up to kick us into touch.